Maintained Schools & Academies
Whether you require on-going legal advice, you are setting up a new school, or you are converting to a new structure, our Education team has years of experience and is well placed to help you navigate what may be unfamiliar and daunting territory for you.
We have supported over 100 academies across the country, and have established countless individual academies, umbrella trusts, multi-academy trusts and multi-academy sponsors. Our involvement in the Free Schools movement dates back to when the first wave of applications opened in 2011, and we have now worked with in excess of 40 applications across the various waves. We also enjoy supporting University Technical Colleges (UTCs) and studio schools for students aged 14-19, and we are keen to work with proposers who want to deliver education through practical project-based learning and often in conjunction with the local community.
Start Right is our academy conversion service working in partnership with Babcock Education.
Find out more about Start Right
JustAsk is our schools retainer service that enables you to pick up the phone to a familiar voice and talk through an issue.
At the heart of everything we do is a commitment to working with you to produce the best outcomes for students. To achieve this, we promise to:
- Deal with the distractions so that you can get on with the important stuff (providing education)
- Always seek to provide you with a fixed fee to give you cost certainty
- Deal with the complexity rather than creating it
- Provide support and partnership
We are proud supporters of Education and Employers - a charity which ensures that every school and college has an effective partnership with employers to provide its young people with the inspiration, motivation, knowledge, skills and opportunities they need to help them achieve their potential and so to secure the UK’s future prosperity.
The Education Team have been involved in the Free Schools Programme since the first wave of schools opened in 2011. We have now worked with more than 60 applications across the various waves. We are pleased to have been selected as a trusted partner for Premier New School's Intensive Support Programme for free school proposers. For more information about the programme, please follow the link: http://www.premiernewschools.co.uk/isp/
A very cohesive team that works to its strengths in a mutually supportive way. They have a very good understanding of schools and the systems within which they operate.
Chambers 2017
They are excellent. They put the needs of schools first and they have always gone the extra mile.
Chambers 2017
Very impressed with their commitment to establishing a long-term relationship.
Chambers 2016
News
- The DfE make changes to the model funding agreements
- To concentrate or confiscate – banning energy drinks in schools
- Searching, screening and confiscation – DfE guidance
- School governance in 2017: An annual survey by NGA and TES
- Carillion in liquidation – what will it mean for schools?
- GDPR: The emerging trends
- GDPR: Legal basis for processing data
- GDPR: An overview for schools
- Head to Head with Steve Bulmer
- Does competition law apply to academy trusts?
- Updates to School Inspection Handbook
- How compliant is your Academy's website?
- Legal support for Academy Trusts
- ESFA launches land and buildings collection tool
- Head to Head with Paul Cornish, Principal of Newton Abbot College
- New legal duties for schools concerning previously looked after children
- Department for Education – updated guidance on schools forums
- School complaints – considering the Equality Act 2010
- Ending the 'postcode lottery' – the new National Funding Formula
- Data protection and complaints
- Safeguarding suspension is not a neutral act
- OFSTED complaints procedure found to be unfair – what does it mean?
- Updates to EduBase no longer possible
- Permanent and fixed period exclusions – the headteacher's dilemma
- Academies Financial Handbook 2017 – key changes
- Making significant changes to an academy
- What does the future hold for education?
- Analysing school performance – a summer upgrade
- New power to remove elected parent governors
- High temperatures in schools – what is the school's duty?
- Awards for three Cornish primary schools following 'ThinkBIG' challenge
- How much does it cost to convert to an academy?
- Schools' duties when it comes to politics – where do they stand?
- Financial responsibilities for schools and academies
- Please, Miss – school term-time holidays
- Challenging net capacity
- Head to Head with Adrian Leggett of Harwich and Dovercourt High School
- Solar tax increase – what will it mean for schools?
- No more Multi-Academy Trusts in the South West?
- Academy trust mergers – holding consultations
- Joining a new MAT – some practical points
- Head to Head with Tommy Cullen of The Stour Academy Trust
- Taking children on holiday during term time
- Head to Head with Tony Callcut of Link Academy Trust
- Social media – risks and opportunities for schools
- TUPE top tips
- Head to Head with Sarah Ferguson of Derby Diocesan Academy Trust
- Governance Handbook 2017 update – what has changed?
- What do you need to tell the EFA?
- How should a school deal with teachers being cyberbullied?
- DfE proposes to expand number of good school places
- Update – National Database of Governors
- Reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils
- Can I refuse a pupil a school trip because of disability?
- Disciplining a child with SEN
- Asbestos in schools – what do you need to know?
- Sixth Form Colleges looking to become Academies
- Proposed change to definition of "coasting" schools
- Can a parent withdraw their child from RE and/or SRE?
- Converting to an Academy
- Becoming a 16 to 19 Academy: advice for sixth-forms
- Can MAT's join the RPA with only some of their schools?
- Academies Financial Handbook 2016
- Multi-Academy Trusts are the future
- New Regional Schools Commissioner for the South West Region
- Head to Head - Mark Greatrex
- SEN and Funding
- Changes to Risk Protection Arrangements (RPA) for Academies
- Updated safeguarding guidance for Schools
- Conflicts of interest and connected persons
- High Court Judge finds OFSTED inspection unlawful
- Authorised term-time holidays
- Apprenticeships, be prepared
- FAQs from staff when converting to Academy status
- Key points from The White Paper 2016
- Parents' Evening - what is the legal position?
- Every School to be an Academy; It's Official (at last!)
- Primary Chain Grant – when it's gone it's gone!
- Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check for school governors reintroduced
- Education and Adoption Bill
- Coasting Academies Update
- Head to Head with Executive Principal of Aspirations Academy Trust
- Schools urged to review school uniform policies
- Illustrative regulations for coasting schools
- Head to Head with Executive Headteacher of the Castleman Academy Trust
- Raising aspirations
- General Election 2015 – the end of choice?
- Counter-Terrorism and Security Act: The Prevention Duty
- Early conciliation: negotiating through ACAS
- E guidance on academies risk protection arrangement updated
- Our Children Their Future
- Michelmores Supports New Free Schools
- Michelmores Wins New Free School and Academy Instructions Nationwide
- Academy sponsor E-ACT hands back control of 10 schools
- Additional £100,000 available to Primary Schools becoming academies
Get in touch
Antony Power
Partner
Meet the team
Recent experience
- Aspirations Academies Trust (South England): acting on the conversion of the latest school to join the Trust and its first Space Studio School.
- Aspirations Academies Trust (Bournemouth): procuring the refurbishment of a new school building.
- Chumleigh Community College (Devon): acting on the conversions of a secondary school and three primary schools joining a Multi-Academy Trust.
- Daventry UTC: supporting one of the first UTCs which opened in September 2012.
- Discovery Schools Academies Trust: working on the individual academy conversions for each new school joining the trust, as well as developing Schemes of Delegation and Partnership Agreements to govern the Trust’s structure.
- Dorset County Council (Dorset): providing legal support on a range of education related matters including working on the conversion of the first PFI school in the country.
- Exeter Diocese Board of Education: advising on the restructuring of two Multi-Academy Trusts.
- Highcrest Academy (Buckinghamshire): consultation and referral to the Schools Adjudicator in relation to changing the school’s oversubscription criteria.
- Holyport College (Berkshire): advising on the Funding Agreement including additional boarding clauses.
- Khalsa Education Trust (Bradford): supporting the Trust on the establishment of the Khalsa Engineering Academy, which includes converting the Single Academy Trust into a Multi-Academy Trust to allow for the second free school
- Kingsway Community Trust (Manchester): working with two primary schools to establish a Multi-Academy Trust and converting both schools to academy status.
- Kingsway Schools Trust (Manchester): development agreement with the Council to construct an extension and a joint use agreement with a local school.
- Leeds Jewish Free School: advising on the outsourcing of the provision of secular education.
- National Autistic Society: establishing a Multi-Academy Trust and its first free school.
- Negotiating with the DfE on a collaborative partnership allowing non-qualifying schools in Essex to convert to academy status.
- Sevak Education Trust (Coventry): supporting the Trust on the pre-opening stage of the Seva Free School, and ensuring that the legal documentation and structure is appropriate for future schools to join.
- Space Studio School (Banbury): drafting the funding documentation including a clawback agreement in preparation for the opening of the school.
- St Christopher’s Primary Multi-Academy Trust (Exeter): establishing the Trust on behalf of Exeter Diocese and completing a review of the corporate governance structures including schemes of delegation, terms of reference and designing a structure which will enable the Trust to grow.
- The Island Free School (Isle of Wight): providing advice at the pre-opening stage including funding advice and drafting employment contracts.
- Woodbrook Vale Academy (Leicester): advising on the ability to permanently exclude based on medical grounds.
- Acting for local authorities on the Ealing 1, Ealing 2, North Tyneside, Newport, Conwy, Fife and Slough PFI school projects.